When the Moon Hits Your Eye...

No, no, no...

A Transmission Developers' Guide to Developing Deep,
Long-lasting Relationships with Landowners
Using Romantic Analogy

This very lengthy blog post was inspired by 3 things. 

First, I care a lot about what happens with Plains & Eastern, but I’m really looking beyond it, too. Transmission will happen. I don’t want anyone else to go through what the people I’ve met in the last year have. It’s heartbreaking and it’s real. Things have to change.

Second, last week someone said to me, “If I had to explain to someone how not to develop a transmission line, I would point to Clean Line.” Now, that person was talking about more than just landowner relations, but the truth is that the “vocal minority” Clean Line and their allies like to bemoan seem to be the majority of affected landowners and their neighbors.

And lastly, Dave and I were talking about the blog the other day, and the possibility that we might have some readers besides the “vocal minority”, our friends and parents, and of course Clean Line. Readers who might actually invest in or develop transmission. We complain. A lot. But we don’t give a lot of good examples about what you should be doing instead. 

Clean Line hasn’t been all that receptive to our suggestions. Maybe it’s because they see this relationship they’re proposing in a more mercenary light, but the truth is… At some point transmission developers are going have to decide if they want to wade through years and throngs of opposition, or put their big boy/girl panties on and treat landowners (da-dum-dum) the way they would in any other special relationship in their lives. So, let’s try putting that special relationship in romantic language and see if that helps clarify.

The Ten Rules of Woo

1.  To woo or not to woo- This is of the utmost importance. You have to be able to prove a concrete need for your project. A real, actual need. If that need is simple economic development, that’s fine, but don’t expect to be able to access eminent domain without going twelve rounds with the public, the press, and the court system. Yes, you many win, but it’ll cost ya’. And for goodness sake, if you decide to woo, work the rest of the rules. Always remember that no one “owes” you a relationship.

2. Saddle up and be a man/woman- If you’re over 14, notes passed in class are unacceptable. So are vague postcards. And newspapers. Forty years ago, newspapers ads were a fantastic way to reach people. They're still a great way to reach some people, but they’re not enough to reach the most important people: the landowners you’re proposing a long-term relationship with. The same with postcards. It doesn't matter if that's what's legally acceptable or not. You're not trying to get a date with a lawyer, you're trying to get a date with a hottie. Do the work.

Let’s say there’s this person you see at the grocery store every week. Do you tell the guy in the deli how cute she/he is and just hope that he mentions your interest to her/him? Well, you can, but you probably shouldn’t make reservations at Chez Madeline’s for the next night.

I know it can be hard and scary to meet someone for the first time. Especially when there’s something you want from them that they might not be excited to give, but you just have to do it. Be direct. Be nice. Repeat. Be consistent. And, for heaven’s sake, be early. You want to see an angry landowner? Easy. Make them the last to know about a project.

3. Keep the “woo” in your wooing- Yet again, no one owes you a relationship. You might think that they do, but they don’t. If you want to be with someone without getting a martini thrown in your face, you have to work at it. I’m not talking about flowers or candy (although candy is nice), I’m talking about taking the time to get to know someone. You don’t wait until after your wedding to find out if you have shared interests. At least, not anymore. Take the responsibility, and the initiative, to make sure your new friend feels comfortable with you. Be genuine. Call them up. Respect their boundaries. Give them control of the situation. There’s this phrase you see posted in a lot of offices, “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” Give yourself the time and space in your development plan to really work with people. Recognize that they may have had bad experiences with developers in the past. Respect those experiences. Go the extra mile to show them you're not that way. Recognize that courting today isn't done the way it was fifty, twenty, or even ten years ago. Respect the shifting values and work with them. You can't rely on, "Well, this is the way wooing has always been done." Not if you want to get lucky.

Clean Line managed to get most of the easements for the Tennessee segment of Plains & Eastern before they even got utility status from the TRA. I listened to the final TRA hearing. They had a landowner testify about what a great experience they’d had with Clean Line. This was at a time when we were still routinely running into landowners in Arkansas who had no idea they were in the corridor or potentially affected.  Now, granted there is opposition in Tennessee which has been less vocal, but what accounts for the difference in the perception of Clean Line in these two states? Contact. Early contact. A willingness to put themselves out there in terms of risk. They could have wound up with 17 miles of easements they had no use for (still well within the realm of possibility), but they did it anyway. They tried to show the Tennesseans they were valued and important. When asked by the TRA commissioners why there was so much opposition in Arkansas, Clean Line admitted it was because they’d had less contact with Arkansans because the route was less certain. Here’s the thing about that. They’ve always had a preferred route. They’ve always known where they wanted to go. My hunch is that the cost of effectually contacting all those people was an issue... and that it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission (though more cowardly). I don’t really know though.  What I do know is that people were furious when they found out the project had been in the works for six years without their input… A lack of effective planning and commitment on your part does not constitute an obligation to fall into line on our part.

4. Watch your messengers- We’ve all played telephone. It’s an old story that doesn’t need rehashing. However, the importance of who you pick to represent you can’t be overstated. If you’re going to choose an advocate to lobby your intended on your behalf, at least chose one he/she likes. If you have to remind them not to belittle or minimize the object of your affection, they’re probably not the right person. If you overhear him/her telling your lover that his/her concerns about his/her health and well-being are irrelevant, you probably need to have a heart to heart. If you discover your messenger had planned to try to humiliate your lover into submission, time to rethink your choice. If you find that your advocate has misrepresented you in an embarrassing way, you might not have the right person. Especially if that misrepresentation is something you were (I hope) unaware of (because… dang).

5. The truth will out- In this day and age, the internet is not only forever, but freely accessible to anyone with personal access or a library card. An astounding amount of information is available on everything from RTO studies, to policy development, to real estate and health studies, to resumes. Social networking means that opposition groups across the country can work together to keep tabs on you and share their knowledge. Be honest about yourselves, your company, and your intentions… Lest the jilted lover of your secret lover air your (hopefully false) dirty laundry online. So if you have, say, a ridiculous little graphic showing how energy is transmitted from wind farms to houses, it doesn’t have to be to scale, but it should be at least somewhat reflective of your proposal proportionally. People aren’t stupid as a general rule and they tend to get grouchy when they feel they’re being manipulated.

6. Don’t promise Aunt Pauline the veal before you’ve proposed marriage- You want to see your lover angry? Ask their parents for their hand before you’ve actually asked your intended. Or better yet, promise Uncle Floyd he can live with you after you’re married without the express and full consent of your would be spouse. It’s a pretty common thing to court schools and job seekers as a means to drum up support for a project, but it’s dangerous when you start attempting to leverage that support to force a situation or override landowners. Can it work? Sure, maybe. But when you attempt to divide a community like that there are repercussions. I’m an agnostic, so I’m not talking about the karmic, “judgement of God” kind of repercussions, but the human ones. 

You may believe with all your heart and soul that you’re doing the right thing, but if you’re yanking your lady into your cave by the hair, you’re treating her badly, even if you end up with a wife. The “greater good” is both a fluid and subjective thing. The damage we do to each other is more concrete. If you feel lost or uncertain, or even if you don’t, do a gut check. Go to the mirror and stare at yourself. Imagine yourself as all the other players in your situation. All the players. Try to feel what they’re feeling, think what they’re thinking. Watch to see if you flinch. If the line between your eyes gets deeper. If you start crying… Then decide if you’re on the right path. And if you’re not, think about how you might fix it. By the way, if you don't feel any pangs of conscience, if you're not at all moved by the struggles of others, you need to see a therapist. Immediately.

7. Apologize when you’re wrong- It’s such a simple thing to do and it carries so much weight. I know this is scary, especially for companies worried about lawsuits, but an apology is so, so very powerful. I mentioned the following to one of Clean Line’s big wigs during the EIS hearings. I’m not sure he actually heard me, but it’s worth repeating: the doctors who don’t get sued aren’t the flawless ones, they’re the ones who apologize.

"Mr. Utley, impressed, didn't bother hiring a lawyer. He settled directly with the hospital for an undisclosed amount which he says was far less than he might have been awarded in court. "They honored me as a human being," he explains.

We all want to be honored as human beings. All of us. We want our life’s work respected. Our autonomy, our intrinsic value, our opinions and thoughts to be given weight. We recognize that for developers, this is all business, but for us, it’s personal… and business. 

8. Take her girlfriends/his boys out to dinner- A major bone of contention with this line is that it affects not only the hosting landowners but their neighbors, who go uncompensated. The proposed line is very, very different from a cell tower, so that argument falls flat (although neighbor payments for cell towers deserve their own discussion). There are situations where P&E would pass much closer to a neighbor’s house than it would the hosting landowner. Those people deserve to be compensated. Well compensated. In spite of what Clean Line repeatedly argues regarding property values, the bottom line is that even if the losses aren’t as great as so many people (lawyers, real estate agents, etc…) expect them to be, developers (especially private developers) have a moral and ethical obligation to make people whole. 

I can’t tell you the level of stress this project has caused people. People who’ve sunk life savings into retirement homes and are terrified that this project will make their futures’ financially insecure. And it makes sense that they would be scared. Listen, even if Clean Line is right, and the property value loss is only 10% (which I am not conceding) next to the line, if you had $100 in your pocket to live off of the rest of your life and some stranger came up to you, took $10 and ran away, would you not be furious? Would you not be deeply offended and terrified? Especially if you knew they were going to turn that ten into thousands? It’s wrong. It’s just wrong. I don’t know how else to say it, and I’m kind of amazed that I even have to.

9. Take a frikkin’ shower- Okay.  Put new transmission underground. I know it’s more expensive. I don’t care. Put the damn things in the dirt. You want to see opposition go home? Take away a major bone of contention.  Looks matter. They do. Duke Energy says they do:

"Regarding vistas, we do consider view shed meaning visual impact as opposed to direct impact on a property," he wrote. "I would also say that, based on public input, we will weight certain factors such as view shed more heavily than others.

Senator Ben Cardin said looks matter when he wrote an amendment to the tax extensions package requiring that new transmission go underground to deal with “the NIMBY issue”. The QER talks about it, too. 

Don’t want to deal with NIMBYs? Fix their driving issues. Duh.

People who do the dirty work of hosting the country’s infrastructure deserve to be treated with deference and respect. They deserve to have their needs met. So, when we tell you developers that you need to stop trashing our view, you need to stop trashing our view. And stop trying to shame people for feeling that way. Aesthetic beauty isn’t something that should be the province of only the people who can afford it. Like… investors and wind farm opponents in Nantucket, say. We can keep arguing about this issue or you all can do the work, speed your process, cheapen your overall costs, and make people happy.

10. No means no- I’ve got to finish up because I’m just getting angrier and angrier as I write this, but this, this right here, is the rule you should never get to. If you find yourself considering whether or not to force your project on someone, you better go back and review the other rules because violating this one is not okay. It’s a failure. Once you've taken that step, there is no turning back. That relationship will never be repaired. It will never be healthy, even if it's moderately functional. Just the threat of that kind of violation is enough to irreparably damage a person and a relationship. It's a bell that can't be unrung. It leaves a mark. Not just on the victim, but on the violator. If you are vastly relying on a legal authority to compel acquiescence to your project, you need to take your butt back to the bathroom mirror and perform another gut check. 

I’ve said it before, ad nauseam, but I’ll say it again: allowing a developer blanket eminent domain to force a project is as ridiculous as allowing a single holdout landowner to derail a good project. It’s stupid. It’s ugly, and it’s wrong.  

Happy Sunday.

The Machine

Keeping the lights on?

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!" -Mario Savio

About 275 people signed into the recent Department of Energy meeting in Ft. Smith. Many others, myself included, attended without signing anything. For several hours, people railed against Clean Line and the process that brought them there that evening. Roughly fifty speakers were able to make comments. Four of them were in support of the project. Among the “anti” speakers were two area mayors, a county judge, and a county commissioner for Sallisaw, OK. All have drafted letters of opposition or adopted resolutions on behalf of their constituents.

While Ft. Smith was certainly the largest of the DOE meetings, it was most certainly not the only one in which the opposition to this line was expressed both in terms of passion and numbers.

There are two questions everyone involved in this project should be asking, top to bottom:

“Why is there so much opposition?” and “What went wrong with the notification process?”

I actually got to ask a couple Clean Line employees those questions in Ft. Smith. The answer to the first (Thanks, Jason) was that it was because of members of the opposition spreading falsehoods…

Number one, individual members of the opposition are not that powerful. I mean, that’s flattering… and I’m sure Arkansans like to be told they’re lemmings incapable of coming to their own conclusions or doing their own research, but no… We’re not thought magicians.

Number two, way to avoid taking responsibility. Again, if anyone is responsible for any misinformation out there, it’s Clean Line. They a) left a void when they failed to adequately engage the public and b) didn’t take the concerns people had seriously. I can’t stress enough just how big a deal that is. There are two things people need to feel for you if you want them to believe what you say: trust and respect. In Arkansas, Clean Line has apparently flubbed both. So when a young woman’s cardiologist tells her that she will have to sell her house and move away from this line because of her defibrillator (true story), she will have zero faith in a stranger who tells her this line was in the works for six years before she found out about it and that it will put out no more EMF than the cell phone in his pocket.

The second question is just as important and I got to ask it of multiple people… The DOE, Tetra Tech, and Clean Line. The best answer came from Dr. Jane Summerson of the DOE, who acknowledged the myriad of people who have felt left out by this process. The responses from Clean Line reps, as you might expect, were a little more defensive.

Can I say how bizarre it is to stand in front of someone arguing that sending a postcard was going “above and beyond” what they were required to do, while in the auditorium beside you people are literally screaming about revolution, property values, health effects, and asking if there’s a Cousin Eddie in the audience who would bring Mr. Skelly to Arkansas wrapped in a bow for the sole purpose of telling him what they think of his plan and its execution a la Chevy Chase? No, he wasn't serious... I don't think... But if you're looking for a gauge of public opinion... It's hard to explain to those not impacted how this nightmare has taken over the lives of so many people.

Clearly, Clean Line’s idea of “above and beyond” doesn’t come anywhere close to Arkansas’ idea of “sufficient” (or Oklahoma’s for that matter, given the number of attendees from Sallisaw). Their insistence that they did more than they had to is much like a guy who accidently starts a forest fire while burning trash in August and says, “But I was using a burn barrel.” It would be comical if the results didn’t have such a huge and serious effect on the lives of real people.

And still, where does that get us? The way I see it, there are three possibilities. All are speculative, of course. 1) There was an intentional lack of notification. I don’t think that’s true, but I can tell you, I’m pretty lonely in that opinion in this movement. 2) Clean Line honestly didn’t know how ineffective their attempt at notification had been. 3) They eventually realized how ineffective the notification had been, but when they had to make a decision on what to do about it, they opted to put their heads down and push through. Regardless, none of these options makes me particularly excited about these people putting a transmission line through two states and a bit.

Trying to shame us or tell us how lucky we are that we even got a postcard is probably not the best tactic either. Yes, in the past transmission siting was done with very little input from landowners. No, that’s not the way things are going to happen anymore. Just ask SWEPCO. 

Why? 

Because people have had enough. From New York to New Jersey, Rhode Island to Virginia, Wisconsin to Missouri, Nebraska to Colorado, Winnipeg to Germany, they are done with business as usual- whether it's intentional or accidental. (Psst- just saying you're interested in landowner feedback doesn't cut it) 

Yesterday Dave (he'll be posting some good stuff on this soon) and I...mostly Dave... spent hours slogging through testimony on the congressional post-mortem of the blackouts in California and New York in the early noughties (the autopsy that shaped the very policies in play today). One thing became achingly and abundantly clear: Landowners were seen at worst as NIMBY’s or BANANA’s (I wonder where the good senator got that?), and at best as obstacles to swift siting and permitting, but never as true partners in development… Except for this marvelous man, who actually gets it. It’s a long quote, but it’s worth it:

"Deregulation certainly short-circuited utility incentives to invest in transmission because the private interests of facility owners come into conflict with the shared public nature of the transmission system. It is a highway, not a market, and especially when you are asking them to make investments that they--for a system they share with their competitors. It is very difficult.

And moreover, deregulation undermines the ability to account for social and environmental questions and constraints. The social cost of transmission is much higher than its mere economic cost. The fundamental problem with transmission is not inadequate incentives to invest. Utilities were willing to do so before deregulation. The problem is public resistance to building additional transmission facilities for environmental, health, and safety reasons.

For these social reasons, scarcity of transmission in an economic sense is likely to be a permanent part of this industry's landscape. That is what our people tell us.

The benefits of the shared transmission facilities are difficult to allocate. This is a network that is shared. The problem is geographic and intergenerational. Today's investments deserve a long-term, long-distance transaction, maybe tomorrow's core for serving native load.

Now, I understand the pressure to do something in the wake of the blackout, but when it comes to electricity, doing just anything will not help. You have to do the right thing or you will make matters worse.

Right now, you do not need to repeal the Public Utility Holding Company Act to improve the reliability of the system.

I don't need utilities going into non-utility businesses and creative massive multi-state holding companies that escape regulation in order to improve reliability.

We do not need to impose the standard market design. And the regional transmission organizations that are embodied in it are the wrong ones to create. They are dominated by industry, they preempt local accountability, and they have forced utilities into markets for allocating transmission resources with no assurances that the capacity is adequate today, additional capacity will be built or maintained.

We must not rely on industry self-regulation. The proposal to move from voluntary self-regulation to mandatory self-regulation misses the point. The difficulty is not the voluntary versus the mandatory. It is the ``self'' part. We need clear accountability to public authorities.

Do not create private transmission monopolies. Transmission is a natural monopoly, part of a shared network. Transferring control to unregulated companies will simply allow them to increase their profit and exploit their market power.

So that is what you shouldn't do. What should you do? I personally believe we need transmission organizations, but they have to be organized on a very different model than has been contemplated and proposed. Any transmission organization must be based on fairness and public accountability. Fairness 
requires a process for representation of all interests affected by transmission projects. The way to overcome social resistance to transmission projects is to give people a fair chance to present their case, defend their interest. That is what federalism is all about. It is an ugly, tough process, but it works because it empowers the people.

Accountability demands that the local officials who get the phone calls when the lights go out are the people who are making the decisions, who have the ultimate authority. They didn't call the FERC when the lights went out in Ohio. They called the Ohio PUC. The Ohio PUC must have a fair representation in this process.

Accountability also requires transparency. We cannot have this conflict between the FERC and the DOE and the private companies and the NERC over who has got the data and who is responsible for the analysis.

Finally, even if economic incentives were a problem, and I don't think they are, the solution is not to increase the rate of return but to lower the risk, and that is what the utility model used to do. It established a long-term commitment. It established a stable environment. And frankly, all of the 
people who say we can't raise money in the industry are living in the dot-com 1990's, not the post-bust market. Give me a stock that offers a stable dividend, a slow and long-term growth rate, the widow and orphan stocks that the utilities used to be. They will have no trouble raising capital. But it is public policy that must create that environment that will promote the investment. Thank you."

-Mark N. Cooper, Director of Research, Consumer Federation of America

HEARING before the OVERSIGHT OF GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT, THE FEDERAL WORKFORCE AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA SUBCOMMITTEE of the COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION, SEPTEMBER 10 AND NOVEMBER 20, 2003

Landowners are done being treated as collateral damage. We’re not just stakeholders. We’re the people who actually make personal sacrifices for these things without the hope of great return. So, if new transmission is necessary for the new energy economy, you better believe it’s not going to happen in the same way transmission did for the old energy economy. There is no way the people are going to tolerate the status quo any longer.

Clean Line likes to compare its project to railroads, right? But they never talk about the laws and increased unionization that came about as a direct result of workers who went on strike in the 1870’s and 1880’s because their working conditions became intolerable (and there was that 10% wage cut… 10%... sounds familiar). 

I’m not talking about revolution here, but evolution. Know who was missing from the witness line up for those key policy decision-making sessions? The people. 

But we’re all people, right? 

Except that landowners haven’t been treated as such. Not really. In a recent Jonesboro Sun article on the APPROVAL Act, Mr. Skelly mentioned how long they’ve spent working on this line. That they aren't going to give up. Trust me, the families here who stand to lose land they’ve worked for generations or land allotments they were given after being forced from their own homes know how that feels.  So here we are. 

Ask why.

"No Eminent Domain for Private Gain"

Mea Culpa

We’re behind on our blogging again, but things have been moving so quickly it’s hard to keep up. So while I want to do a post on Michael Skelly’s recent interview in the Dover Times, which was incredibly juicy and chock full of sorta truths (40k “letters” to landowners during the scoping period? Really?... May want to reread that scoping summary report, my friend. No discussion of eminent domain during the Arkansas  Public Service Commission process? So this testimony from the Senior Assistant to the Attorney General somehow doesn’t count? Uncontested? Sure, but only because Arkansas Electric Consumers, Inc wasn't permitted to. They certainly had some interesting things to say. But no, this blog post is about something else entirely…

Oops! Not that! Though that’s important… and interesting since Clean Line had a few industry reps there to testify on their behalf, but no landowners. Why? Because all the landowners were too busy writing their names down to testify against Clean Line and for the committee’s letter to the Department of Energy. Big kudos to all the legislators at that meeting who asked their questions with the caveat: “I don’t want you to pull my leg!”

I’m sorry if I sound a little extra snarky and bitter tonight. It might because one of Clean Line’s reps told me that people who didn’t know about the scoping period should have read the newspaper (I didn’t realize a paper subscription was a constitutional requirement for landownership). It might be because after all this time, and all this opposition, they still don’t realize that landowners aren’t just your average “stakeholders” and that money doesn’t mean that much when it doesn’t come with respect. It might be because Jimmy Glotfelty sought to reassure our legislators that his extensive history with the Department of Energy had nothing to do with the project by testily proclaiming that anyone could submit a proposal under Section 1222... Except that no one else has.

Were we surprised that Mario continued to insist landowners will only experience a ten percent reduction in property value? (Especially when a man sitting in the audience was prepared to testify he’d been told by his mortgage broker that he can build the house he’s been saving for all these years, but if the line comes through, he will instantly be underwater?) Nah. That we could power our own light bulb with static electricity by holding it while we walked across a dry carpet? Uh-uh. That Jimmy pulled his relationship with GW out of his pocket the second he lurched out of the gate for us country folk? Nope.

The big surprise was in the modification of the Sierra Club’s endorsement of the project. Oh, they’re still endorsing it, for sure… but there was an extra sentence in Glen Hooks' testimony that was kind of similar to the one from Sierra Club OK’s official statement at the Muskogee DOE meeting last week:

“Sierra Club has heard concerns raised by several communities about how construction of this transmission line will affect their enjoyment of the natural environment in their region or disrupt their livelihoods,” Pearson said. “We believe the Clean Line Partners should take these concerns seriously and work with landowners and others to identify an acceptable route."

That bit right there about the landowners... we haven't heard that from them before. 

And this is where I have to apologize (I seem to be doing that a lot lately). Some months ago I wrote a blog post in which I made it pretty clear how angry I was that NGO’s had been given earlier and greater opportunity to have siting issues addressed than landowners.  At the time I assumed they did so knowingly… After talking to several members of these NGO’s over the past few weeks, and reading some of their public statements, I no longer believe that to be true. Rather, I think they were unaware of the lack of communication between Clean Line and landowners. 

In fact, after talking to one of Clean Line's industrial supporters on Monday before he was whisked away by a Clean Line rep, I feel like the same is likely true of the "jobs" people. They've been told we're just NIMBYs... I think they're learning that's not the case.  

I can’t explain all of my reasoning behind these hunches without breaking confidences, but I can say that it seems the NGO experiences have been vastly different from ours. Cocooned in Clean Line charm… 

I can’t say that others in the opposition feel the same, there are a lot of very deep wounds associated with this and a lot of people who still disagree with the endorsements for other reasons. But when we see statements like this one from an Audubon email (donated by a STO member):

“While the project could nearly double the amount of clean energy used in Arkansas, it would also completely bisect the state. That creates concerns about collision hazards to birds, habitat fragmentation, and private property rights along the 300-mile route. We also have concerns about how the proposed route will cross the Cache-Lower White River Important Bird Area. This IBA harbors significant populations of birds that are known to be susceptible to transmission line hazards.

Audubon Arkansas remains neutral on the issue right now, despite being urged by both sides to support their views. As conservation leaders in the state, we take this role seriously. Our team is thoroughly reviewing the Environmental Impact Statement and will draft a formal position to send to the Department of Energy. As we evaluate the science and specific mitigation and restoration plans – we want to ensure that you are kept aware of the plans and are empowered to participate in the process.”

And this one from SC Tennessee's Scott Banbury (posted on the SC Central Arkansas Group's Facebook page): 

"As the Conservation Program Coordinator (sole employee) of the Tennessee Chapter of the Sierra Club, I will be speaking at the Draft EIS hearing in Millington, TN. Here in TN we have taken the position of supporting the concept of wind power delivered from wind rich areas in the Midwest as a replacement for power generated at fossil and nuclear plants operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority. I will also speak to the need to avoid, minimize and mitigate the impacts that the siting of the power line might bring. Further, I will speak to the agreement that Clean Line made in their Sec 1222 application that they only seek the power of eminent domain if absolutely necessary. I will not state unconditional support for the project, nor will I reject the very valid objections that opponents of the project have raised. Rather I will do everything I can to ensure that their concerns are addressed and that all pertinent questions are answered in the final EIS."

That these environmental and conservation groups would recognize the importance of private property rights and concerns is impressive. That they can look beyond those glossy booklets… As a friend who attended our Hendrix College panel with Sierra Club said, “The Sierra Club’s position has changed significantly since last November.” Is it a withdrawal of the endorsement? No, but it counts for a lot. Especially because, whether this line comes through or it doesn’t, those of us who are divided on this issue now will want to come together again. On other projects and in other ways. This is our Arkansas.

Mea culpa.

My Son, the Doctor...

Taking back NIMBY...

I know I promised new writers (and they are coming), but I have to take one more whack at eminent domain. This is why…

So, a banker, an energy industry worker, and a land agent stumble onto a post…

I confess. A few days after ribbing Clean Line for “sponsoring” ads on Facebook, we boosted a post for our petition with the help of the Arkansas Citizens Against Clean Line Energy page. I know, I know… but we thought it would really help us reach more people. We were right. And out of the many, many people who viewed our post, we only got negative comments from three.  The land agent was by far the most entertaining. I’m blocking out his name and picture here on the off chance that he actually works for Contract Land Staff and used some bad judgment in breaking Clean Line’s Code of Conduct.  It’s his job… He’s defensive… We get it. We’re all human.

Of course, as a rule we don’t remove comments. People sometimes, but comments never. Why? Because that’s playing pretty dirty (cough, cough) and because if we can’t defend our position, publicly, we don’t really have one.

Aside from pointing out the obvious irony in his statement, I want you to pick up on the essence of what he’s saying… No, not that we don’t know what we’re talking about. See if you can guess…

Got it? It’s essentially the same thing we got from the other two people… And what I’ve heard from a couple more as well, members of the Sierra Club specifically... 

“We all have to make sacrifices and it’s not like they take the land for free. It’s just NIMBY.”

Now, aside from the fact that the people who say that most often aren’t the ones being asked to make the sacrifice, I have a real problem with anyone who dismisses another person’s situation out of hand because of what they judge it to be. That denotes a rather disturbing lack of empathy and almost seems like a kind of defense mechanism to keep the dismissor from having to think too long and hard about what they’re suggesting. It’s like people who tell other people that they’re going to Hell without the slightest real consideration of what they are so flippantly condemning someone to. Whether you’re a believer of not, especially if you are, that’s not cool.

But how do you really wrap your head around what eminent domain does? How do you explain a taking to someone who’s never experienced it? Because really, there is no other area in our lives where something like eminent domain is acceptable. Yes, we pay taxes… but we all pay them. Some more than others, but still. This gets into why it is so important that eminent domain be so carefully guarded... Used so sparingly and with such thought and consideration. It’s hard to answer the question, “When is eminent domain okay?” It’s almost easier to identify when it isn’t. But rather than get into all that… again, let’s do this…

I propose a thought experiment. An exercise in empathy. C’mon… It’ll be fun and I’ll get to show off my babies.

Babies! What kind of warped mother compares her babies to property?

Ugh, I know! But stay with me through this part and then you can bail if you want… because this is gonna be long.

First of all, there is nothing more precious to me than my kids. For a lot of people on this line, and the others, the same is true… but their land is a close second. Why? Because it’s what they live off of. It’s their retirement plan. It’s what they’ll leave for their children. It’s their past, present, and future. And, like our children, we only get to nurture it for a little while. We are the stewards. The protectors. We are responsible for what it becomes.

Second, children are what is most precious to most of us. At this point, I can’t think of any other group of beings so universally adored and for whom most of us have some kind of connection. So, no, children are not the same as land, but windmills are not the same as transmission lines and goodness knows Clean Line has enough pictures of turbines on their literature, so here we go…

This is my son. He’s in disguise to protect his privacy. He’s nine and he’s brilliant. Not in a “River Tam before the Alliance summer camp” kind of way, but brilliant. He reads at an eleventh grade level. Math comes easy. So does science. Getting dressed, not so much. He comes out of his room with his undershirt over his flannel on a regular basis. His shoes are always untied… or knotted beyond belief with the loose ends trailing behind him. He’s incredibly sensitive to the needs and emotional temperature of other people. He has a deep sense of justice… a regard for the dignity of others.

This is my daughter… burping. You can’t tell from this picture how incredibly beautiful she is. We call her “The General” because, from infancy, she has had a remarkable ability to shape her environment (and the people in it) to suit her needs. She is also brilliant, but where my son is less concerned with the temporal, she has a common sense that is frighteningly efficient.

This is my baby. I’m not sure who he’ll be quite yet. He’s musical. He rocks the harmonica and sings all the time. He’s also a snuggler, apt to run up and hug a stranger’s legs. He likes to grab my face, a tiny hand on each cheek, look deep into my eyes, and nod. I don’t know what he’s nodding at, but he says, “YES!!” with his whole little being.

So, during this experiment you are going to be me. My family is your family… And I am going to come for your son...

I work for a company partnering with the government to find children we think will make excellent doctors. There’s a shortage of doctors, especially primary care physicians, and while we think you are doing a perfectly adequate job of raising your son, if we take him now and turn him into a doctor, the public will benefit in the long run.

How will they benefit? Well, the school we plan to use to train him will benefit from the influx of resources. Eventually, his patients will benefit. And, of course the company will make a profit. And we can’t forget about the nurses. Don’t you care about the nurses? They need jobs. How selfish of you not to give up your son for the nurses. Don’t you care about other people?

Besides, it’s not like you won’t see him. There will be a video feed. Everyday you’ll be able to see him. You can’t kiss him, you can’t hug him, and you certainly can’t make any decisions about his future. You will be required to pay for his room and board, but we’re going to give you a puppy to make this easier for you. Don’t you want a puppy? Fine, we’ll give you two puppies and some cash. There, aren’t you happy now?

No? I don’t understand why not. No offense, but it really doesn’t matter that he wants to be a paleontologist. All nine year olds want to be paleontologists. This is better. This is about a better future. If we want a better future, we all have to make sacrifices. People have been sacrificing their children since Mayan times, why should you be treated differently. This is the way it’s always been done. We can’t change it.

I understand your concerns, but if we wait a few more years, it’ll take him longer to graduate and we’ll lose the income he could have been producing (besides, advances in tele-medicine could make this program obsolete by then). Physician’s assistants? Nurse practitioners? No, those things don’t work. It has to be this way. This is the only way that makes sense for us. And, frankly, you can’t afford to take us to court. We have more money, connections, and expertise than you do, and when it’s all over we’ll just take him anyway. The most the court will give you is more cash and puppies. You don’t get to argue whether it’s fair for us to take him in the first place. Don't bother, you’ll just be giving money to the lawyers. Hey, everybody’s got to have a doctor.

Oh, goodness, no. He won’t come back here to practice. There aren’t enough patients here. He’ll be in Charlotte, or maybe Richmond… We’re not really sure. We don’t have any places set up for him to work yet, but it won’t be here. Maybe he can come back for Christmas, but we can’t guarantee anything. We’re not going to commit to that yet, that’s just one of the alternatives we’re looking at.

Can you have him back if it doesn’t work out? No, you don’t get him back. We’ll just sell him to another firm… Which we might do anyway, in which case, they’ll have different rules for you, but no more cash or puppies.

Why, no... We’ve never done a project quite like this before, though we’ve been in the medical industry for years. We’re brand new. Isn’t that innovative? Don’t you trust us? Here, look at this art deco sculpture of a doctor. Doesn’t that make you feel better? See, I’m smiling. I’m nice, right? You can’t be upset about this if I smile and act nice.

I don’t understand why you say you’ve never heard of us before. We sent you a postcard. No, it didn’t say that we wanted to take your son, but it said we were thinking about starting a school. I don’t know why you wouldn’t have seen it. We’ve been very active in the community-- We’ve been talking to literacy campaigns and state/federal officials about this for years. We took out ads in the paper. You don’t read the newspaper every day? Oh, well. I guess you don’t deserve to have a say in what happens to your kid if you’re not going to read the paper every day.

Now, before I leave, I have to tell you… I’m looking at your daughter. I’m not really sure if I’ll be back for her yet. I have to see how things pan out, but she’s a very smart young lady. Why are you crying? You’ll get another puppy! And you still have your baby. But you should know that I can come back for him at any time also. If fact, I, or someone from another company, can come back for any child you have or may ever have. There’s no requirement that we stop taking them after we’ve taken so many. We may have to eventually pay for you to have another if we’re using the federal government to do it, but not if we’re using the state. Anyway, we can take that child away, too.  It just makes more sense, don’t you see? It's for the public good. You’ve already given up a child. In some vague way here, I’m acknowledging the damage I’ve done to you, but only in the sense that since the damage has already been done, it’s easier to hurt you more than to start fresh with someone else. You don’t want anyone else to be hurt do you? Though I still don’t understand why you’re upset. Puppies! Cash! Yay!

Ugh, I’m so tired of people like you, you know that? All you NOOMK’s. That’s what it is you know, you’re just a NOOMK—Not One of My Kids. You don’t have any real objections to this project. No real justification for not wanting to give him to us. Nothing you’ve said tonight meets our criteria for a real concern. You’re just rationalizing your NOOMK-ism. It’s sad really, that you are so very selfish.

Whew! Okay. Well, I hope that gives someone a little perspective. Now obviously there are going to be some people who are really okay with, or even want, the transmission line (or at least I hope there are since Clean Line seems to think they’ll be able to “negotiate” the majority of the line—with eminent domain at their back of course), and that’s their prerogative (though it may suck for neighbors not hosting the line who'll lose property value). This exercise is about those people who don’t want it. Of course, I've used a touch of hyperbole, but I’m not quite sure how else to get through. I feel a bit like the guy in Whoville trying to find that one last “yip” or “yop” to break through the atmosphere.

We are not unaware of the world around us. We’re not oblivious to climate change. We’re not blissfully revving our engines (at least not most of us). We live the land. The drought that Diana Rivera referred to in her Congestion Study comment… we lived it. All we are saying… Well, all I’m saying... is that there has got to be a better way than this. And if we don’t stand up and say it now, the future of our energy industry is going to work a lot like the past… except meaner and more streamlined, with even less local control.

Let me be clear, the responsibility for the opposition that is blossoming in every state in which Clean Line is proposing a project falls directly on their own shoulders. It has a lot less to do with NIMBY than it does with Clean Line’s failure to effectively and proactively engage the people who will be most directly impacted by their projects. And the people out there, few as they have been, who feel so smug in throwing out the NIMBY label, need to pull their heads out of Clean Line’s pretty, glossy brochures and think hard about what that acronym really means.